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Ex-TBWA creative team joins Lowe

LONDON - Ed Morris and James Sinclair, the creative team that left TBWA\London two months ago, have been signed by Lowe.

Morris, an art director, and Sinclair, a copywriter, are the first hirings by Damon Collins and Tony Barry since their appointment as Lowe’s joint creative directors at the end of last year.

Their arrival is part of plans to bring extra resource and creative potency to the agency, which has been working to put itself back on course after last year’s departure of the £43 million Orange account and a substantial amount of Vauxhall business.

"This is a very important hiring for Tony and me because Ed and James are our replacements," Collins said. "When we became creative directors we took ourselves out of the equation. We’re still trying to produce ads but it’s hard."

Morris and Sinclair, best known for their “double life” Sony PlayStation commercial while at TBWA, surprised the industry when they parted company with TBWA in November just 18 months after rejoining the agency from BMP DDB.

The pair had a “roaming” role at TBWA, that enabled them to choose the accounts on which they wanted to work. But the arrangement is thought to have proved mutually unsatisfactory.

Collins said the pair would not be working in a similar way at Lowe but they would have input across a range of accounts. Their first brief is for a Diet Coke campaign.

"There aren’t that many star creatives who remain as hungry as placement teams — but that’s what Ed and James are," Collins added. "There are only a handful of people like them around."

The duo became partners in 1992 at the then Miller & Leeves WAHT. They later moved to Bainsfair Sharkey Trott, where they lived through three mergers — with BDDP, GGT and, finally, TBWA Simons Palmer.

Sinclair said: "Tony and Damon have brought a hungry hotshop mentality to a grown-up agency. It feels like the right place at the right time."

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